CHAPTER IV. 



The Uses of Kapa. 



An orderly treatise on the uses of kapa (of course in the olden time) must 

 begin with the earliest and most important use, — that for clothing. A treatise on 

 clothing with so little for text : a strip of cloth nine inches wide and nine feet long 

 for the man, and for the woman a strip a little wider and somewhat longer ! The 

 gentler sex to whom we owe the multiplication of clothes and the variation of fashions, 

 reduced to such simplicity as the learned Teufelsdrockh would find difficult to farther 

 anatomize, and we unlearned ones can onl}- admire as we do the Venus of Melos! 

 The philosophy of Sartor Resartus crumbles away in a laud where a tailor was as 

 unknown as an electrician, and yet all were sufficientl}^ clothed. 



"O fair undress, best dress! It checks no vein, 

 But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns. 

 And heightens ease with grace." 



Three only were the forms of dress on Hawaii for both sexes : for the man the 

 malo or narrow strip; for the woman the pa'u a similar strip but wider and longer; 

 for both sexes the kihei or shawl; in modern terms trousers, petticoats and cloak. 



Simple as these garments were they all admitted of grades in qualit}', decora- 

 tion and size. We find a heavy penalty, sometimes death itself, was incurred if a 

 commoner put on the malo of a chief; so there was a difference between the garb of a 

 commoner and that of an aristocrat even in those primitive days, easily seen. Later 

 the kapa malo of the chief developed into the more costlj- and durable network of 

 olona, which in the case of the Moi was sometimes covered with feathers and decorated 

 at the ends with the teeth of his enemies. Fig. io8 represents the network of one of 

 these in the Bishop Museum (No. 6921). The feathers are all gone, but a careful 

 examination shows the quills of the feathers still attached to the web in places, and 

 on the broad surface fragments of skin are also found indicating the former presence 

 of the black plumage of the iwa {^Fregata aqnila) which was usually attached with 

 the skin. There is also in this museum a fragmentary malo of mat work never 

 covered with plumage, carefully preserved in the Queen Emma collection (No. 2600), 

 supposed to be the famous malo of King Liloa which attested the birthright of his 

 son Umi as told in Hawaiian song and legend. 



To return to our plain kapa malo: it was usuall}^ adjusted to the body by hold- 

 ing one end under the chin, passing the malo backwards between the legs, bringing 



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